Christmas From Hell (3 page)

And just like that, his night got a hundred times worse.

*-*-*-*

“
Is there a reason why you’re standing there, staring out the window and watching the neighbors? Are we preparing to kill them and drag them down to the basement and bury them alive?” Grandpa asked, making her smile despite the butterflies going wild in her stomach as she searched for
his
truck.

“
No,” she said, rolling her eyes as she turned around to find her grandfather perusing the sweets that she’d worked all day making. “You know that you’re not allowed anything sweet.”

“
It’s Thanksgiving,” he murmured with a dreamy little sigh as he stared down at the orange and yellow cupcakes that she’d just finished frosting.

“
So?” she said, deciding that this was probably a good time to place the covers on the food and set them carefully in the cart.

“
So, it means that I can indulge a little bit,” he said with a slight pout that had her rolling her eyes, because he should really have known better than to try to bullshit her by now.

“
No,” she said, standing on her tiptoes so that she could kiss his whiskered cheek, “it really doesn’t.”

“
Well, it should,” he said, heavily as he gave the platters of cupcakes, brownies and cookies one last glance of longing and reached for the bowl of fruit that she kept well stocked for him.

“
Tell that to your doctor,” she said with a wink as she grabbed a tray of extra large double chocolate chunk cookies and placed them on the cart’s bottom shelf.

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I thought we’d agreed that you weren’t going to call my doctor anymore.”

“
I crossed my fingers,” she admitted with a shrug as she grabbed a tray of double chocolate brownies with fudge frosting and placed it on the next shelf.

Somehow he managed to narrow his eyes even further. “You’re fired,” he said tightly, making her roll her eyes, because really, that was just never going to happen.

“
Uh huh,” she murmured absently as she glanced around the kitchen, wondering where that last tray of cupcakes had disappeared to when she realized that her grandfather was leaning back against the pantry doors, trying to avoid making eye contact with her.

“
Really?” she asked with a sad shake of her head.

“
I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, managing to keep a straight face.

“
I don’t have time for this,” she said, shaking her head in annoyance as she walked over, grabbed his arm and gave it a gentle pull, which did absolutely nothing since he outweighed her by at least fifty pounds.

Closing her eyes in defeat, she said, “Move or I’m calling your doctor right now and telling him that you’re trying to eat junk food again.”

“
You’re bluffing.”

She opened her eyes and met her grandfather’s hard grey eyes head on, grey eyes that had been known to make grown men cry, and matched it with a glare of her own. She was the only one, besides her grandmother that is, whom he couldn’t intimidate.

He’d tried.

God, how he’d tried, but since she was a baby she’d always managed to give it right back to him without hesitation, which was probably why she’d always had a special place in his heart. Well, normally she did, but not right now since she was coming between him and sweets.

“
Am I?” she asked, cocking a brow in challenge, because they both knew that she wouldn’t hesitate calling his doctor and telling on him if he kept pushing her.

A little muscle in his jaw began to tick, which really wasn’t a good sign. But, then again she wasn’t afraid of him like everyone else was. Granted, most people had a good reason to be afraid of her grandfather. Even though he was in his sixties, you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. He was still physically fit, six-two, two hundred pounds of muscle, and a retired Marine Drill Sergeant. He had very little patience for stupidity and never gave anyone a second chance. If you crossed him or someone he loved, Heaven help you, because no one else would.

He was also about three-dozen cookies away from becoming a diabetic or having another heart attack.

That muscle in his jaw jumped double time as he glared down at her. “
I’m fine
,” he finally growled.

Well, snarled really, obviously making one last attempt to get her to walk away and leave him in peace so that he could indulge his sweet tooth.

“
Then those two heart attacks meant what exactly?” she asked, standing her ground.

“
They were nothing,” he said tightly, clearly on the verge of giving up.

“
Uh huh,” she said, gesturing for him to move aside so that she could grab the last tray.

“
I knew it was a mistake to teach you how to talk,” he said with one last glare as he walked over to the fruit bowl, grabbed an apple and took a large, unsatisfying bite.

“
I love you, too, Grandpa,” she said with a chuckle as she opened the pantry door and-

Sighed heavily with disappointment.

“
Really?” she asked, shaking her head in disbelief as she stared at her grandfather’s stash.

“
I don’t know how those got in there,” he said in a monotone voice as he took another bite of his apple.

“
Yeah, I’m sure you have no idea how two dozen donuts from our bakery ended up in the pantry,” she said, chuckling because there was just something so endearing about a man like him trying to talk his way out of trouble.

“
I really don’t.”

“
I’m sure that you don’t,” she said, chuckling as she loaded the final tray onto the cart. Standing up, she sighed with relief. “It’s ready,” she said, gesturing to the cart in question with a sweep of her arms, relieved that it was finally done so that she could call it a night.

Mid-bite, her grandfather paused and stared at her blankly. “Why are you telling me?”

“
Because you’re supposed to take it next door,” she reminded him as she reached back and undid her apron.

“
No, I’m not,” he said, looking mildly confused.

“
Yes, you are,” she said, in absolutely no mood to play this game with him, because they both knew that she would never willingly go next door.

“
I don’t remember discussing this.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she considered her grandfather. “You asked me to do this as a favor for Danny and Jodi. You said that you would bring the food next-door when it was done.”

He shrugged, as he shifted his focus back to the apple in his hand and admitted, “I lied.”

Chapter 2

“
Did you really tell a sixty-five year old woman to, and I’m quoting here, ‘Shut the fuck up?’” his captain asked as he looked up from the incident report in his hands to shoot Duncan a questioning glance.

“
No, sir,” he said as he shifted on the stretcher, trying to get comfortable, which he already knew from experience was impossible. “I told her husband to shut the fuck up, sir.”

“
I see,” the captain said, glancing back down at the incident report, but not before Duncan saw his lips twitch with amusement.

Well, he was pretty sure that his lips twitched, but then again he probably wasn’t the best person to ask at the moment, not with blood still running down his face, making if difficult to see anything out of his left eye.

“
Let’s move on to the next complaint,” the captain said, looking down the long list of complaints that he’d received regarding Duncan’s last call.

“
Let’s,” Duncan said, giving up on trying to get more comfortable and pressed the icepack back against his forehead, earning a glare from his boss.

“
Duncan
,” the captain said in a hard tone as he looked up from the incident report to shoot Duncan a warning glare.

“
Timothy
,” Duncan shot back in the same hard tone, laughing when his best friend shook his head good-naturedly with a chuckle and returned his attention back to the list of bullshit in his hands.

“
It was a fucked up call,” Duncan pointed out, closing his eyes as he willed his headache to go away, but that probably wasn’t going to happen anytime soon thanks to the lovely concussion that he’d received when he was forced to release the angry son and drag the guy’s mother off the little home wrecker, who’d announced that she was not only pregnant, but that she’d fucked every guy in their family.

That hadn’t gone over well.

At least not for him since for whatever reason the whole family had turned on him at that point and had decided that he was somehow to blame for this bullshit. They’d ganged up on him, hitting him with whatever they could get their hands on and when Duncan’s partner came in with the police, they’d decided to double their efforts before their punching bag was taken away from them.

The thing that had pissed him off the most was that even though he’d been getting his ass kicked, he hadn’t been able to make himself take a swing, terrified that he’d hit one of the women. So, he’d done his best on restraining the men, which again had only made them madder.

It had taken ten cops, five firemen, and three EMTs to pull them off him. It had definitely been a Thanksgiving for the books, he thought with a pathetic groan as sharp pain shot through his head.

“
You know that I have to investigate their claims, right?” Timothy asked, not sounding particularly happy about it, but right now Duncan could honestly say that he didn’t give a flying fuck. His head was killing him, every fucking muscle in his body was screaming in pain, he was starving, had missed having Thanksgiving dinner with his family and now he had to get his fucking head stitched up thanks to the old woman who’d decided to slam an old baseball trophy into his head.

“
Do what you have to do,” Duncan said, trying to breathe through the pain, but it was fucking difficult when every noise made his head feel like it was about to explode. The bright lights overhead weren’t helping either. All he wanted to do was get his head stitched up, go home and lock himself in his room for the next week.

“
I’m going to have to put you on paid suspension for a month while we investigate,” Timothy said, adding a special note to his day.

“
Not fucking happening,” Duncan said, refusing to take the hit to his personnel file and screw up any chances at promotions or raises in the future.

“
It will disappear as soon as the month is over,” Timothy reassured him.

“
They attacked me,” he reminded his boss and best friend.

“
And they’ve all been arrested and charged with Federal assault on a Firefighter,” he said, sounding pissed and for good reason.

They risked their fucking lives for people, worked insane hours, survived on very little sleep and this was how some fucking people thanked them. Some days he felt like saying fuck it and going to work for his Uncle and then there were other days when he loved his job and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Today just wasn’t one of those days.

“
Mr. Bradford, I see that you’re going to need a few stiches,” a very unhappy, uptight woman said as she pushed open the privacy curtain and entered the examination room.